


Menage A Trois

by Shreiking_Beauty



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: AU, Experimental, Fluff, Gastanfou, Humor, M/M, Not Serious, OOC, Pining, Romance, StanFou, gafou, it's stupid, secret admirers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-25 06:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10758912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shreiking_Beauty/pseuds/Shreiking_Beauty
Summary: Just putting this up here to see if anyone is interested at all . . . it's terrible I know.Gaston and LeFou are together, and they want Stanley to be with them too??? So they send him secret admirer notes.Yeah. I have writers block. R&R





	1. Chapter 1

The tavern was alive with music and laughter, a typical summer afternoon. Gaston lounged on his luxurious chair, attended, as always, by LeFou. Today, however, LeFou was distracted. He gazed forlornly across the tavern at the bar. Tom, Dick, and Stanley were sitting there, as usual, though with two new additions. Tom and Dick both had new girlfriends, leaving Stanley as something of a fifth wheel as they sat, each with a pretty girl on his knee. Stanley stood leaning against the bar, drinking from his tankard and joining in the laughing and joking whenever the girls would tease their men by including him, and otherwise staring at the floor silently.

 

“He just looks so sad,” LeFou sighed.

 

“Who?” Gaston asked, cleaning some dirt from under his meticulous fingernails.

 

“Stanley. He’s been growing farther and farther apart from Tom and Dick, and now they hardly pay him any attention.”

 

Gaston looked over to the bar. Tom’s girlfriend was teasing him by pretending to flirt with Stanley, who played along politely. “How did Tom and Dick get girlfriends and not Stanley? He’s so much better looking than either of them,” Gaston sneered.

 

LeFou leaned in conspiratorially. “Apparently, he’s rejected every woman who’s approached him. He’s just not interested in settling down. A free spirit, they say, doesn’t want to be tied down.”

 

“Or maybe he just doesn’t want to be tied down by a woman,” Gaston speculated, eyeing LeFou meaningfully.

 

LeFou frowned sympathetically. When Gaston had finally broken down and admitted to himself and, consequently, LeFou, that he wasn’t interested in women, LeFou had been supportive and understanding, admitting his own feelings about Gaston. The two had, to say the least, gotten together right away. They weren’t public about it, and the villagers either didn’t know about their relationship or respected Gaston too much to mention it.

 

He remembered how lonely he was before, even with Gaston at his side every day. He wanted Stanley to find love like he had. There was even a time, when he had been sure that Gaston would never love him the way he needed, that he had entertained the idea of trying his luck with Stanley instead. He blushed, remembering how quickly he had developed a crush on the other man, although he could never tear himself away from Gaston.

 

Gaston was sympathetic, as well. After Belle had rejected his marriage proposal, and had been imprisoned by the beast, her father had come to him to help rescue her. Gaston had humored him, and they’d searched for hours before Gaston and LeFou convinced him to return to the village. Maurice had put up a fight, become hysterical, and someone had called the asylum to come take him away. Belle had arrived, confirming his stories about the beast. The villagers feared the beast and Gaston himself had lead the mob to kill it. Fortunately, Belle had caught up with them and confessed her love to the beast, and the enchantment was broken, revealing him to be the prince.

 

Afterward, Gaston had something of a meltdown, leading to his new relationship with LeFou, as well as a change in himself. He was still cocky, self-centered, and overconfident, but he could now admit to his flaws, and see the beauty in others, to an extent.

 

“He just needs two handsome, kind gentlemen to adopt him,” Gaston told LeFou suggestively.

 

“Yeah, but Tom and Dick are too wrapped up in their new girlfriends,” LeFou reminded him sadly.

 

Gaston rolled his eyes. “LeFou, I mean _us._ ”

 

LeFou looked at him scandalously. “Gaston! You know how I feel about sharing!”

 

“Yes, but it wouldn’t be like that, you see? It wouldn’t be as though you were sharing me with Stanley, it would be more like you and I sharing Stanley.”

 

“Ah, or Stanley and I sharing you! Or you and Stanley sharing me!”

 

“Exactly!” Gaston confirmed.

 

“But . . . isn’t that kind of, I don’t know . . . strange?”

 

“So? Since when has that stopped either of us from getting what we want? Come on, LeFou, he needs us!”

 

The two of them looked over at Stanley, who was staring despondently into his mug while Tom and Dick were making out with their girls.

 

“Yeah,” LeFou finally agreed. “But what can we do? It’s not as if we could just walk up to him and say ‘hey, would you like a _ménage à trois_?’”

 

“Well, no, I suppose not . . . we’ll have to be sneaky. Subtle. Make him fall in love with us before he knows it’s _us_.”

 

LeFou looked at him speculatively. “How, exactly?”

 

Gaston’s eyes lit up. “I know just the thing! We’ll send him secret notes and gifts, claiming to be a ‘secret admirer’. I used to get those all the time!”

 

“I don’t know, Gaston, are you sure that would work? I mean, how can he fall in love with us if he doesn’t know who’s sending that stuff?”

 

“Trust me, when it comes to affairs of the heart, I’m an _expert_!”

 

“But the notes. He can surely recognize your handwriting, and I still don’t write very well.”

 

Gaston considered this. “Yes, I suppose that could be a problem . . . if only we had someone who would write the notes _for_ us . . .”

 

“Who do we know that can write really well, and that we can trust not to rat us out or judge us?”

 

They sat thinking for a moment. The village was much more accepting than it had been before the castle’s enchantment was broken, but something this delicate was better kept as secret as possible. The town still had an unbreakable habit of gossiping about anything and everything. People they felt could be trusted not to judge them were the type to gossip, and people that kept to themselves seemed less tolerant of lascivious behavior.

 

LeFou straightened suddenly and put a hand on Gaston’s chest to get his attention. “Belle.”

 

“ _Belle_?!” Gaston gasped. “No way. She hates me!”

 

“Not that much! Besides, she _loves_ me! And she’s really good at writing, and she’d never judge us, and you know she doesn’t gossip with everyone else. Come on, it’s perfect!”

 

Gaston pursed his lips. “You’re right, LeFou. It’s the only way.”

 

Wasting no time, the two of them left the tavern to find her. She spent a lot of time in the castle, and Prince Adam took her on long vacations in exotic destinations frequently, but she did spend a lot of time in the village. Maurice had been invited to live in the castle with them, but he was a simple man of simple tastes, and preferred his little house with his garden and workshop. Belle visited several times a week to help him with the farm and with his music boxes. On a sunny afternoon like this, she could usually be found weeding her father’s garden, and Gaston and LeFou were pleased to find that was exactly where she was.

 

“Bonjour, Belle,” Gaston said pleasantly.

 

“Bonjour, Gaston, LeFou,” Belle replied skeptically. “Is there something you need?”

 

“What? Of course not! We don’t have to _need_ something to talk with you, do we?” Gaston said, chuckling nervously.

 

Belle looked unsure. “You’re not . . . proposing to me again, are you? Because I thought you and LeFou were . . .”

 

She gestured vaguely between them.

 

“Oh, no, nothing like that, of course not!” Gaston insisted.

 

“And we _are_ together,” LeFou confirmed possessively.

 

“But it’s a secret,” Gaston added hastily, looking around briefly to make sure no one was listening.

 

“Not much of a secret if everyone knows,” LeFou murmured.

 

“Now that you mention it,” Gaston said as though it just occurred to him, “there _is_ something you could help us with. LeFou and I have found ourselves in need of someone just like you!”

 

“Someone like me?” Belle asked with amusement.

 

“Yes, someone who can write and keep a secret.”

 

“What could you need me to do?”

 

LeFou rolled his eyes at Gaston. “Let’s just be upfront with her,” he decided. “We want to send secret love letters to someone but we don’t want him to know it’s us.”

 

Belle frowned at them. “What do you mean? You’re not trying to trick someone, are you? Because that’s really cruel.”

 

“No, no, not at all!” Gaston exclaimed. “It’s no trick! We’re really interested in him!”

 

“Yeah, we like him a lot, and he needs us! We just kind of want to, you know, get to know him better, _court_ him, if you will. But we don’t want to scare him off because there’s two of us.”

 

Belle nodded. “That can be quite . . . disturbing. Are you sure about this? I mean, you two have each other already, isn’t it kind of greedy to want someone else?”

 

“I _am_ greedy, Belle,” Gaston pointed out. “But we need him! He completes us! Everything is better in threes. You see, he’ll be the brains, I’m the brawn, and LeFou . . . LeFou is the one who takes care of us, like, makes sure we’re safe and happy, kind of _guides_ us, gives _direction_ to the brain and brawn . . .”

 

“Like, the leader?” LeFou offered.

 

“No, no. I’m the leader. Definitely.”

 

LeFou rolled his eyes at him, but smiled affectionately.

 

“Anyway, will you help us, or not?”

 

Belle chewed her lip as she considered. “Alright. On one condition. If Stanley rejects you, you leave him alone. No harassing him, no trying to force him into anything, understood?”

 

“Of course, Belle,” Gaston assured her. “We don’t want that at all.”

 

“Yeah, Belle, we’ll be totally gentlemanly.”

 

Belle sighed. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad people are interested in this! Here is chapter 2, nothing special, but much more Stanley

Stanley didn’t want much in life. Mostly, he just didn’t want to be made fun of, like when Pierre picked on him for trying on the neighbor girl’s dress (it was _one time_ ). He was afraid when he started school; Tom and Dick were a few years older than him, and they had become the village ‘pranksters’. They teased Stanley for being so quiet, but enlisted his help when they figured out he was just the right size to fit through the hole in the back of Mme. Vivian’s chicken coop and scare the chickens into a frenzy. When he was caught, and didn’t tattle on Tom and Dick, they decided to let him follow them around.

 

He did everything they did, from hiding the schoolmaster’s things as children, to dumping Belle’s laundry out as adults. He drew the line when Tom and Dick got girlfriends. The villagers teased him that he was too ‘free-spirited’ to be tied down by a girl, but . . . that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that when he looked at a pretty girl, he didn’t feel anything special. Not like when his face got hot whenever Gaston clapped him on the shoulder. Not like the butterflies he felt in his stomach when LeFou smiled at him.

 

No one else in the village seemed to share his preferences, but he could live with being alone. He had finally indulged in his desire to wear dresses, in secret, of course, and had a couple of dresses hidden in a chest that he would dress up in when he was alone, as well as a small box of make up under his bed. In these moments, he sometimes fantasized about what it might be like to have a man on his arm, but he knew it would never happen.

 

Stanley woke one morning to a knock on his door.

 

“Stanley?” his brother sang through the door. “I have something for you!”

 

“Go away, Pierre, what’s wrong with you?”

 

Ignoring him, Pierre opened the door and came in with a large bouquet of flowers, which he put on the nightstand. “Someone left this at our doorstep. And it came with a note!”

 

Pierre dropped the envelope onto Stanley’s face.

 

“Get out of my room, Pierre!” Stanley snapped, glaring at him. Pierre rolled his eyes at him and left, closing the door behind him.

 

Stanley looked at the flowers curiously. They were beautiful, but the thought of some village girl sending him flowers kind of made him queasy. Still, he opened the note and read it.

 

_Stanley,_

_Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?_

_Thou art more lovely and more temperate:_

_Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,_

_And summer's lease hath all too short a date:_

_Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,_

_And often is his gold complexion dimmed;_

_And every fair from fair sometime declines,_

_By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;_

_But thy eternal summer shall not fade_

_Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;_

_Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,_

_When in eternal lines to time thou growest:_

_So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,_

_So long lives this and this gives life to thee._

_Thought you might like something lovely to wake up to. Hope it cheers you up._

_Love, your secret admirer_

 

Stanley blushed at how cheesy it was, but he could admit to being flattered. He wondered who it could possibly be from. It seemed the village girls had given up on him (finally), but the handwriting did seem familiar . . .

 

He pulled himself out of bed and went to his desk, looking through some papers until he found a note he’d gotten from Belle (he really needs to clean out his desk). Comparing the handwriting, he furrowed his brow in confusion. Why would Belle send him something like this?

 

He got ready hurriedly and made his way into town with the note tucked into his vest, hoping to see Belle and confront her. Luckily, he found her walking to her father’s house from the square with a small basket of groceries.

 

“Belle? May I speak with you?” he asked as he approached her.

 

“The note wasn’t from me,” she said immediately, not stopping.

 

Stanley stopped and furrowed his brow in confusion. “But—”

 

“I know it’s my handwriting. I wrote it for someone else, so you wouldn’t recognize _their_ handwriting.”

 

“Well, who was it from, then?” Stanley asked, following her to her father’s garden.

 

Belle went through the gate and closed it between her and Stanley. “It’s from a secret admirer, I can’t tell you who it is.”

 

“But – I can’t just – why not? What’s the point of sending me gifts and notes if I don’t even know who they’re from?”

 

“It’s a secret for a reason. You wouldn’t be interested if you knew who sent you those things.”

 

Stanley huffed in annoyance. “Then why should I be interested now?”

 

“Stanley . . . I know who it is. And I know why you wouldn’t be interested if you knew. But I know that, if you could look past that first obstacle, you would be happy. That’s what this is all about.”

 

Stanley grew worried. “What does that mean? Obstacle? Is it something terrible? I mean, if I fall in love with this person, the obstacle will still be a problem, what if being in love isn’t enough?”

 

He tried to think of all the possibilities for someone to keep their identity a secret. Best case scenario, it’s a matter of class difference, although that’s unlikely since Belle and Prince Adam fell in love. Alternatively, it could be a man and he doesn’t think Stanley is interested in men. Worst case, its someone that can’t be with him, maybe someone who’s already married. Most likely though, it was one of the village girls that had been trying to catch his eye.

 

“Will you at least tell me . . . a clue? Something small? Just, like, I don’t even know if it’s a girl or . . .”

 

Subtlety wasn’t one of Stanley’s strong points, and Belle had to stifle a laugh. “Alright; it’s not a girl. That’s all I’m telling you.”

 

Stanley was honestly relieved. He nodded thoughtfully. “Right. Thank you, Belle.”

 

He went about his day distractedly, trying to figure out the author of the note in his pocket, suspicious of anyone who paid him the slightest attention. He looked up at one point when he heard raucous laughter, where Gaston had apparently told some joke to Tom and Dick.

 

 _Gaston?_ Stanley thought, blushing _. Surely not, there’s no way he’d notice someone like me._ LeFou, on the other hand . . . he was certainly sweet enough, but Stanley had always thought he was in love with Gaston. At times, he even wondered if they were together. It couldn’t be Tom or Dick, they had their girlfriends, and if they were interested in Stanley, that’s a terrible way to show it.

 

He could hardly sleep that night, trying to pretend he wasn’t hoping for another gift in the morning.

 

The next morning, Stanley woke before his brother, and got dressed quickly, hoping to check for another note before Pierre woke up. He tried to convince himself that his eagerness was due to his desire to hide the notes and avoid Pierre’s teasing, but deep down, he was excited. To his (secret) delight, sitting right at his doorstep was a small box tied with a ribbon, and a folded paper was tucked in the ribbon. He looked around to see if anyone was nearby, but the yard was empty, so he snatched up the box and rushed back to his room.

 

Stanley untied the ribbon and opened the box, which held a small cake with raspberries on it, then opened the note.

 

_Stanley,_

_Here is something to sweeten your morning. I know you like raspberries, but I would like to get to know you better. If there is anything you’d like to say to me, send a note with Belle. I apologize for the secrecy, but I hope you’ll understand the necessity. I hope you have a wonderful day!_

_Sincerely,_

_Your Secret Admirer_

Stanley smiled softly at the note. He picked up the cake and took a bite; it was a popular pastry at the village bakery, when one could afford to spend so frivolously. It was true that he enjoyed the cake, the soft, sour raspberries bleeding into the sweet cream and cake, but his favorite was actually the blueberry muffins.

 

He thought about writing back. Would it be worth it? What if someone was playing a joke on him? In the end, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to send something vague.

 

 

Gaston yanked LeFou behind a house and peeked around a corner. “Stanley’s coming!” he hissed.

 

LeFou looked around as well. “Is it just me, or does he look . . . happier?” he asked hopefully.

 

Stanley walked into town from the road that lead to his family’s farm house. He looked around for a moment before spotting Belle and approaching her.

 

“Ah, he’s talking to Belle!” LeFou whispered. When Stanley handed Belle a small piece of paper, Gaston and LeFou looked at each other and squealed excitedly.

 

“He’s coming this way!” Gaston gasped. “Stand up straight, and act cool!”

 

They straightened and tried to look nonchalant until he passed, and waited until he was out of sight before rushing over to Belle.

 

“So???” Gaston started. “Did he give you a note for us?”

 

Belle sighed exasperatedly. “I really don’t want to be your messenger.”

 

“Hey, you find a way for us to communicate without you and we’ll do it. Now, about that note . . .”

 

Belle held it out, but didn’t let go when Gaston grabbed it. “I’m going to ask Prince Adam for something to help you communicate.”

 

“Fine, fine, okay, let me see it!”

 

Belle smiled in amusement at their enthusiasm as they took it and leaned in close to read it. Gaston pointed out the words as he read them quietly to LeFou.

 

“Thank you for the cake. Actually, blueberries are my favorite.”

 

LeFou frowned in disappointment. “Kind of vague. You don’t think he’s offended, do you?”

 

“No, no, this is perfect! He’s not making any decisions now, he’s giving us a chance! What are we going to give him tomorrow?”

 

“Blueberries, obviously! The baker has great blueberry muffins.”

 

“That’s a good idea, but we should do something else, too, since we already did a pastry. And we already did flowers . . . it shouldn’t be anything too extravagant, since it will be paired with the muffins, and we don’t want to overwhelm him.”

 

Gaston nodded thoughtfully. “We should give him something he can wear. If he wears it, we’ll know he’s interested.”

 

“A new cravat?” LeFou suggested. “He always wears the same one.”

 

“Not everyone has a different cravat for every day of the week,” Gaston teased. “That might work, though. You pick it out, I’m terrible with fashion.”

 

LeFou quickly went to the store and purchased several cravats for himself as well as one that would match the outfit Stanley usually wore, and Gaston went to the bakery and got three blueberry muffins (two of them were for him and LeFou). They put them in another small wooden box and planned out what they wanted to put on the next note.

 

Belle scrawled their note for them quickly and headed back to the castle for the weekend. After a short reunion with Adam, who expressed his desire that she stay at the castle more, she began inquiring about the many enchanted artifacts that were still scattered around the castle.

 

Adam didn’t like to talk about the enchantress much. He had learned his lesson, but he had a hard time hiding his disdain for her and her tricks. With his wife’s persistence, however, he began explaining some of the things they had, both from before and after the curse (Adam liked to think the enchantress gave them new gifts as an apology, but Belle thought she just didn’t have anything better to do with her cool stuff). He told her about dozens of things, many family heirlooms that had been gifted to the royal family by other sorcerers, all useful and interesting, but not what Belle was looking for.

 

“This quill set never runs out of ink, which was essential in the days of my grandfather when ink was scarce—” Adam was explaining, but Belle interrupted.

 

“All of these things are wonderful,” she said, “but I’m really looking for something that could help people communicate with each other across distances without waiting for letters.”

 

Adam shrugged. “I have a set of journals that might work. Whatever you write in one will appear in the other, but it disappears after a few weeks. It was made for my great aunt to correspond with her peasant lover.”

 

Belle thought about that for a second. Gaston would have to write in his own writing, defeating the purpose of the animosity. “Is there any way to disguise someone’s handwriting?”

 

Adam gave her an odd look. “No, I don’t think I have anything like that . . . what on Earth do you need it for?”

 

“It’s a long story.” She recounted the events of the past couple of days to him. “I guess Gaston will just have to disguise his own handwriting. Anyway, can I give them the books?”

 

“You have very strange friends, Belle,” Adam sighed, “and the enchanted artifacts are supposed to be for the royal family, but . . . I guess if it’s for love, I can’t say no.”


End file.
